Grana Trattoria Antica

Grana specializes in wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pizzas, and they're grand. You'll be partial to the Rosa Bianca, topped with local potatoes, red onion and rosemary. But the more traditional pies are reason enough to visit....

Grana specializes in wood-fired, Neapolitan-style pizzas, and they're grand. You'll be partial to the Rosa Bianca, topped with local potatoes, red onion and rosemary. But the more traditional pies are reason enough to visit.

Meet Dave Plath, first-time restaurateur, longtime pizza enthusiast. About 10 years ago, the former manufacturing executive built his own wood-fired brick pizza oven at his home in Hampton Bays. He started traveling around Italy and the United States, sampling well-regarded pizzas on two continents. It was at the critically adored Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix that he found his pizza inspiration. “At Bianco, it was all about the crust,” he recalled. “The toppings were fantastic, but it was the crust—chewy but light, crisp but not overly tough. With a great flavor of its own.” Then he got serious. He took pizza classes at the International Culinary Center (formerly French Culinary Institute) in Manhattan and at King Arthur Flour’s Baking Education Center in Vermont. In the next few weeks, he will open his very own pizzeria, Grana Wood-Fired Pizza Napolitano, in Jamesport. The guts of the oven were built in Tuscany; the steel housing constructed in California. Ingredients are equally well-sourced: organic flour from Giusto’s in San Francisco, mozzarella made in-house (supervised by chef Chef Alison Galaras, formerly of The Barefoot Contessa and Loaves and Fishes), sausage made from heritage-breed pork, Illy coffee. In addition to pizza, there will be panini (on house-made bread), salads and desserts. There will be eight tables and takeout, too. Stay tuned for an opening date.